Month: February 2008

Name those tunes

Can you guess these ten lyrics?

  1. “Spy” by They Might Be Giants
    I might gaze on a submarine
  2. “Rainbows in the Dark” by Tilly and the Wall
    So my sister went kissing a maple-skinned boy
  3. “Hearts in the Night” by Bedouin Soundclash
    Deep in the city is a man who sings a song
  4. “The Bed’s Too Big Without You” by the Police, guessed by Eric B.
    Living on my own was the least of my fears
  5. “You Are What You Love” by Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins, guessed by Eric B.
    The phone is a fine invention
  6. “Your Time Is Gonna Come” by Led Zeppelin, guessed by Eric B.
    Gonna make you pay for that great big hole in my heart
  7. “This Was Pompeii” by Dar Williams
    All we ever know is that the tourists survive
  8. “Apple Bomb” by Deerhoof
    And number four can marry me
  9. “House of the Rising Sun” by the Animals, guessed by Eric B.
    And God I know I’m one
  10. “Bright Lights, Big City” by Van Morrison
    I tried to tell her mama, but she wouldn’t hear what I said

Sure you can! Here are last week’s answers. Good luck this week!

Facebooks on the shelf

Visual Bookshelf, which I guess is an application I downloaded to my Facebook page at some point (but have since removed from the main page), sent me an e-mail recently worried that

You’ve been reading ‘The Mother Tongue’ for more than a week. Still true?

Which is weird because I finished reading the book sometime in November — so if I didn’t remove it from the list, it’s been there for well over a week. They haven’t sent me notices about any of the other books I was reading then. And is it really so unusual to be reading a book for more than a week? Enough that it requires a little nagging e-mail?

Torch songs

Whoa, was that what I think it was? A genuinely good episode of Torchwood?

I’ve only seen the first episode of the second season, and I have no idea if it stays this good, gets better or worse, or if it’s just the novelty of James Marsters’ guest appearance, but that was actually kind of cool.

I don’t remember ever thinking that about Torchwood.

Oscars, Redux

So I watched a little of the Oscar ceremony, then lost interest and drifted over to a Torchwood episode and the Sunday crossword. I had a little informal pool going with a couple of friends, which kept me tuned in for although a while, although clearly I didn’t win. The only moment I’m genuinely sorry to have missed was the yearly “In Memoriam,” but I suspect it will find its way to YouTube very shortly.

It’s just a jump to the left…

So Jumper was pretty forgettable, if not actively disappointing. I’m not sure if Rachel Bilson is hopelessly miscast and a lousy actor, or if the character is just completely under-served by the screenplay. But, really, she’s the least of the film’s problems. (Hayden Christensen isn’t phenomenal either, but he should have a decent enough career ahead of him so long as he avoids ever letting George Lucas write dialogue for him again.)

The real problem is, there’s no reason to care about any one of these characters — and, in fact, plenty of reason for the very opposite. The effects are cool (if maybe not quite as cool as advertised), but the characters are shallow and one-dimensional, and it’s tough to care if they get to continue living their pointless and smug wish-fulfillment lives. Basically? What Tasha Robinson says here. It’s all the more disappointing because the sort of character development that’s sorely lacking in the film could have been so easily introduced. It’s not that the characters start out as self-centered, greedy, and shallow; it’s that they end up exactly the same way. What the film seems to be suggesting is that these are somehow heroic qualities. That while Christensen could be using his power to help people — if not the drowning victims he sees on TV when we first meet him, then at least his fellow jumpers later on — it’s much better if he uses it for a no-strings-attached life of robbing banks, traveling the world, and getting laid. That whole “with great power comes great responsibility” thing? That’s just for losers who can’t do what he does.

It’s weird to see the film acknowledge what’s wrong with its main character, the smug emptiness at his center, and then to spend the rest of its time championing those flaws rather than letting him overcome them.

It also means the film is not a lot of fun.